Issa Rae Is Sexualizing Men, And Apparently That’s Groundbreaking.

You may remember Issa Rae from such things as being a complete racist. See here. She’s an actress/producer of a show called Insecure, which I’ve never seen, but which apparently includes a LOT of sexual content, much of which features male body parts.

And this is apparently quite groundbreaking according to this.

I mean, just look at this headline:

Seriously?

If you read that article, you’ll see that it says Issa Rae claims it’s “time for the female gaze to have its day,” and that she is “all for the camera lingering longer on the glories of the naked male.”

Issa said, “Men are more sexualised in the series because we are seeing this through the female lens. When I am in the act myself I don’t say, ‘Ooh! Look at my body!’ You are seeing what I see, what I am looking at. It is all very intentional. We are all always seeing titties and ass on screen, this is an opportunity to reverse that.”

This is apparently news, you guys. Issa Rae is being hailed as some sort of hero for sexualizing the male body.

Um…allow me to introduce you to one of the greatest films of all time.

I mean, did you get a load of that dialogue? Intense, amirite? 😉

And there was also this scene:

In other words, Issa Rae is certainly not some sort of amazing trailblazer who has only JUST NOW introduced the sexual objectification of men to the screen.

“But Mock,” you might say, “Issa Rae casts black men and maybe THAT’s how she’s trailblazing.”

Allow me to introduce you to Chocolate City:

And listen, a film doesn’t even need to be about Actual Male Strippers to make my point. It’s not like women haven’t objectified men since the dawn of time. We have. Look at the Marlboro Man, or the Old Spice commercials. Or the Calvin Klein advertisements. HELLO. You don’t think women have been drooling over men forever?  Of course we have.  We are just as likely to appreciate a dude with a smokin’ hot body as men are to appreciate a smokin’ hot chick. This is universal.

But Issa is a Big Deal, you guys. And this isn’t a new topic for her. According to this, Issa said, about her desire to show more male nudity, “Let’s see some dicks. No, I’ve found that a lot of the guys who we’ve worked with have just been all in, like balls to the wall. No balls have been on walls! They’ve been really great about, and generous with, their body parts. I’ve had some of the actors come up and just be like, “I think it’s cool that the women aren’t as nude on this show.”

So wait. Male nudity is cool but female nudity is not? Why?

Now, I haven’t seen Issa’s show, so I have no idea just how much nudity is shown. A common feminist argument is that when there’s female nudity, there’s full frontal, but when it’s dudes, we only get backal nudity. 🙂  But let’s be real here, when women are full frontal, there are no danglies. It’s not like you’re really seeing Actual Genitals.  If men were full frontal, there’d be all sorts of danglies and Actual Genitalia flopping around on the screen.  I’m not saying I’m opposed to that, I’m just pointing out that there’s a pretty significant difference.

I also can’t believe that this requires explanation, but apparently we’re supposed to believe that Issa Rae is a trailblazer right now, so here we are.

Can we just all objectify each other and be cool now, please?